


Twixt Delhi and Cairo

by deepandlovelydark



Category: Nero Wolfe - Rex Stout
Genre: Cabin Fic, Cooking, Fade to Black, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Ship Tease
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:22:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27594773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepandlovelydark/pseuds/deepandlovelydark
Summary: You'd call this fluff. Nero Wolfe, with his erudite vocabulary, would refer to it as "saccharine" or perhaps "cloying", though he'd approve of the recipe for freshwater fish.Archie Goodwin would just call it his report, since he's the one relating it.
Relationships: Archie Goodwin/Nero Wolfe
Comments: 14
Kudos: 17
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Twixt Delhi and Cairo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KannaOphelia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KannaOphelia/gifts).



> Spoilers for "The Black Mountain", which is a trifle atypical of Stout but one of the best in the series if you ask me.

" _Orchis italica_. Not the finest specimen to go risking your life for." 

That was just irony, so I ignored Wolfe and placed the cutting next to the bed, the only piece of furniture in this rough-hewn Catskills cabin that would even pretend to support his seventh of a ton. "No problem. You can worry it to death instead of me." 

He pressed his lips together but declined speech in favor of inspecting the orchid's tattered leaves, and I felt a little better.

The bullet wound that had prompted our retreat was healing cleanly, better than most I've seen- he'd carry it to the grave but there was no particular reason to expect that any time soon, so long as no other assassins waltzed in to finish the job. Wolfe rather doubted that, and he had Inspector Cramer on his side now. A gruff telegram saying as much rested in my hip pocket, detailing four arrests, the thanks of the Montenegro ambassador, and some damn case or other that New York's finest somehow couldn't manage without us: considering the source, that was sentimental as a five-and-dime Valentine.

Which is why I'd bought the orchid as well. It wouldn't buy me a week or even a day, but it might distract Nero through dinner at least. Give me a little more time to think.

"This plant has been ill-treated to a degree almost incomprehensible to the civilized mind. There are distinct marks of teeth on a full quarter of these leaves. Different sets of teeth, no less."

"You wouldn't need my report to diagnose the motherly gray-haired lady distributing largess to three cats."

He scowled- the whole Sherlock Holmes deduction bit is one he's deplored as unnecessarily showy, almost as many times as he's actually pulled the stunt. "Pfui."

I toasted the sentiment in fresh gold-flecked Jersey milk. One advantage of the countryside that the brownstone couldn't match- and truthfully, about the only one from my point of view. The whole sea voyage back from Europe I'd been letting tired nerves have free reign, envisioning Fritz's cooking and a trustworthy alarm system and Nero's gargantuan chair, the one that makes me just as comfortable to see him in as he finds it to sit in. All of that waiting for us, safe as New York ever is, and right then I wanted to see it about as much as an IRS audit.

"I do not intend to tolerate this."

"This?"

He sighed slightly less than the bed as he stood up, drawing an apron over his canary yellow shirt while padding over to the oven. Pointedly ignoring the boughten cane, which ought to have been encouraging. "For the first time in days, I find myself well enough to approach cooking in its guise of subtil art, rather than the mere science of preparation and consumption. This evening we are having _trout roquefort_ , and I have no intention of allowing your unspoken hang-ups to detract from the experience."

I happen to enjoy my job, but this time there wasn't any case to hold me back. "To hell with my hang-ups." 

Wolfe cracked three eggs, yolks in one bowl and whites in another. What he was bothering to save the latter for was a stumper, unless he planned on meringues. "Gladly. Unfortunately, you seem utterly incompetent at arranging such a departure."

That did it; I sat down on a carved maple stool and proceeded to give him what-for in a way that wouldn't have discredited a career sergeant. 

Nothing mysterious, nothing that anyone with a smattering of psychology and horse sense would have found unexpected, let alone Wolfe- just that it'd been fifteen nights since he was shot, and every one of them had found me waking up in cold sweats, and that the fact he wasn't dead now was down to a fluke and four quick-witted sailors, and what kind of muscle was worth keeping around, being so useless as that.

Wolfe listened to it all while sautéing mushrooms and onion and ham, quietly but as intently as any report of mine that ever had a man's life or a hundred thousand dollars riding on it. Eventually that broke over even my strained awareness and I wound down, watching him grind pepper over the sauce and setting it aside to cool. A cup of leftover '24 Muscadet sat on the table between us, but neither of us touched it. 

A good thing, as it turned out. If either of us had been hung to the proverbial winds- if there had been the lightest doubt for me to take hold of, the evening might have ended right there, with me heading out to the local hotel to find a dame or three with sympathetic ears. As it was though, Wolfe was stone-cold sober and so was I.

Which meant I knew he meant it, when he stepped forward and jerked out his hand.

It's astonishing just how uncomfortable he contrives to make that look, and my quizzical expression couldn't have been anything but a deterrent, but he persisted. An eternity or ten seconds later, however long it was with Wolfe standing there in a graceless pose, it occurred to me that now the sauce was done he would be preparing the raw trout next. Offering his hand to me was already a wrench; doing so while covered in fish slime would be simply unthinkable, and I was holding up production.

So I took it. 

Anyone looking at Wolfe couldn't be blamed for expecting a tough, sturdy handshake. His isn't. Tentative, light against my fingers, warmed by the stove and fragrant with browned butter- I would have known that grasp in the dark, picked it out from a crowd of a thousand. Maybe you've never known your own sweetheart's hands that intimately; and if so all I can say is I'm sorry for you. 

"Archie. I assure you, I have no thought of firing you."

Which took me off-guard, because for once the great Nero Wolfe had gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick. It's one thing to decry my own failings, but you can't replace something with nothing. Saul and Fred and Orrie are well enough in their way but neither they or anyone else Wolfe knew would have even gone to Montenegro with him in the first place, let alone be able to stop him getting shot. Which is what you get for having a social circle composed of New York detectives and police. 

So bellyaching aside, there was no doubt we were going back to the brownstone- only apparently I'd given Wolfe the idea that I thought that outcome might be uncertain. 

And I wouldn't be human if I wasn't curious...just how far he'd go to prove he needed me. 


End file.
